Elkosh

Elkosh was the birthplace of the prophet Nahum, as identified in the opening verse of his book. The name, sometimes interpreted as God the ensnarer or connected to a root meaning hardness, is otherwise unattested in Scripture. Its precise location has been disputed since antiquity, with several rival identifications proposed by scholars and travelers.

Three main theories have been advanced: that Elkosh was a village in Galilee near the modern site of el-Kauze (which later Jewish tradition favored and for which a tomb of Nahum was venerated), that it was a town in Judah in the Shephelah, or that it was located in Assyria near Nineveh (a tradition preserved by Eastern Christians who pointed to a tomb near Alqosh in Iraq). The Galilean or Judean identification is favored by most modern scholars, and the Galilean site aligns with a tradition attested as early as Jerome in the fourth century.